Mordred
what hand had set this inner field alight Mordred was the oldest child of Queen Morgause, by her half-brother Arthur; he always believed, rightly or not, that this was deliberate on her part. She raised him in Orkney alongside his younger half-siblings, and for most of his early childhood she favored him markedly; then, with the birth of the daughter she'd always wanted, she lost what interest she'd had in her sons. Not quite ten, Mordred decided he could rely on his brothers, and no one else. Most of all he was devoted to Gawain, who was barely a year his junior; in some ways close as twins, they left together for Arthur's court when they were sixteen. This actually did Mordred a world of good; in a less circumscribed setting, his origins tacitly glossed over, he thrived. He made friends; eventually he even married. He had not been prepared to trust his father any more than he did his mother, but Arthur if nothing else had goodwill on his side. Propriety gave way to a cautious respect; possibly even to guarded affection. Guenever, his aunt-stepmother, he neither loved nor loathed; but he detested Lancelot almost on sight, being far more defensive of Gawain's standing than Gawain himself would ever be. Half for that reason, half out of loyalty to his brother Agravain, he abetted the latter in exposing Lancelot's affair with Guenever. In the ensuing struggle, three of the Orkney brothers were killed; and when Arthur left to besiege his erstwhile friend and recover his Queen, he took Gawain with him, leaving Mordred as regent. This has been widely regarded as a bad idea. Mordred himself took it as insult added to an already mortal injury. Arthur's misguided favoritism, as he saw it, had killed three of his brothers and endangered the last; Gawain was out of reach, when Mordred needed him most. Between grief and resentment and the weight of unwanted responsibility, he snapped. Arthur returned to find his son had raised an army against him; and in the ultimate battle, poetically, they killed each other. against the flame i see the outline of a man His mother, by that time, was long gone. Gawain was dead, either by Lancelot's hand or Mordred's own — reports vary. Four queens came to carry the king from the battlefield. When they had gone, however, another woman came for Mordred: Clarissant, his half-sister, likewise princess and sorceress. What she did, how and where she did it, he never knew; but he woke in Orkney, healed of his wounds and finally, devastatingly lucid. It was a year and a half before he was recovered enough to leave the islands; and by that time his two sons, barely eighteen, had taken up what they called his cause, and were dead too. Their mother was nowhere to be found. Most of his friends had died with him — or against him — at Camlann. For Clarissant insisted that he was dead; was quite clear on this point, for Clar. As time went on, and neither he nor his sister aged, Mordred began to believe it. That was some time ago — historical evidence puts it in the middle of the sixth century, anecdata suggests somewhat later; but Mordred is certainly, at this point, upward of a thousand. You can come to terms with a lot, in that time; you can learn a lot about life, and the human heart, and yourself. You can also develop some really weird habits of thought, and Mordred has done some of both. Legend has it that King Arthur is still in Avalon, asleep or merely biding his time. Mordred doesn't find this particularly far-fetched; he's still around, after all. He has not seen his father for fifteen hundred years; but the prospect of Arthur's foretold return is sometimes all that keeps him going. They call it "closure", these days. take back your sympathy, i do not need to drink that bitter stuff Blame the inbreeding if you want; Mordred is not the most stable personality. Sometimes — often — he's outgoing, cheerful, affectionate, wryly good-humored, and basically courteous under the snarky veneer; this is the side that accumulates girlfriends (and the odd boyfriend, depending on the century). But the high spirits will suddenly give way to a darker mood, prickly and sullen, with a bitter edge to his humor. Pushed far enough, he turns coldly vicious and not a little arrogant — he has, in fact, many of his Pendragon grandfather's worse qualities — and he cherishes his grudges. For the rest, he's loyal to a fault — he will do stupid, ruinous things for that reason, as is abundantly shown above — and desperately insecure. He's not a leader, although he makes a decent second-in-command; growing up with Gawain did that much for him. He knows his faults; he's not nearly as sure of his virtues. He has kept in practice with the sword, intermittently — like riding a bike, he'll say flippantly, not that he ever learned to do that. When he's on his game he's good, but not great. His mother's blood, and her early tutelage, gave him an affinity for magic; he's good at sensing it, though he never learned to use it and would consider it inappropriate to try: witchcraft is a woman's prerogative. i'd rather break the thread that bound us close (casual match in a very dry field) *'Sagramore': heart's friend, true lover, unfortunate casualty. it's awkward. *'Gaheris': the only brother with more violent issues than Mordred himself. *'Alexander Georgiou': fellow temporal misfit anomaly and incorrigible brat. also cute, let's be honest. *'Bellamy Morray': genteel trollery. they're gonna get along just fine. *'Edward Elric': may be too much like him to get along peaceably with, we'll see. (fire and ash is the season's yield) *'Clarissant': half-sister, savior, touchstone, home. *'Nuala': princess of the Folk. reason enough to stay on her good side. *'Morgana': not his aunt, which is almost reason enough to trust her. *'Guinevere': also not his aunt, and the rare sort of girl he genuinely likes. *'Laura Ross': sometimes it's a business relationship, sometimes it's more of an accident. *'Enfys Eddings': they don't make them like that any more. we look for a sign but it is not revealed Mordred is mine, inasmuch as he belongs to anyone. Lyrics from "Casual Match" are by Suzanne Vega. Kim Rossi Stuart is not mine either, but he scowls nice. Category:Characters Category:Resurrected